Turbine engines, and particularly gas or combustion turbine engines, are rotary engines that extract energy from a flow of combusted gases passing through the engine onto a multitude of rotating turbine blades.
Turbine engines for aircraft, such as gas turbine engines, are often designed to operate at high temperatures to maximize engine efficiency, so cooling of certain engine components, such as the high-pressure turbine and the low-pressure turbine, can be beneficial. Typically, cooling is accomplished by ducting cooler air from the high and/or low-pressure compressors to the engine components that require cooling. Temperatures in the high-pressure turbine are around 1000° C. to 2000° C. and the cooling air from the compressor is around 500° C. to 700° C. While the compressor air is a high temperature, it is cooler relative to the turbine air, and can be used to cool the turbine.
Contemporary turbine components, such as airfoils, can include one or more interior cooling circuits for routing the cooling air through the airfoil to cool different portions of the airfoil, and can include dedicated cooling circuits for cooling different portions of the airfoil, such as the leading edge, trailing edge, or tip.